Sports traders on prediction markets are the most active users on those platforms, but most end up with little to show for it. That is a central finding of a new Pew Research Center analysis of nearly 12,000 Polymarket accounts, published July 22, 2026.
Who Pew studied and how
To better understand how ordinary people use prediction markets, Pew collected a sample of nearly 12,000 Polymarket accounts that had placed trades on 10 specific high-volume events in early 2026, then analyzed their publicly available trading activity over the six-week period from May 7 to June 19.
The timing was notable: that window overlapped with the NBA Finals, which ran June 3 through a possible Game 7 on June 19 , the 2026 Stanley Cup Final, scheduled to begin June 2 with a possible Game 7 on June 17 , and the opening matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, making it one of the densest sports-wagering stretches of the year.
The study offers one of the most granular looks yet at how people are choosing to spend leisure time and money on a category of platforms that has grown explosively in a matter of months.
Sports traders dominate but rarely profit
Combined monthly global trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket has risen from less than $5 billion in September 2025 to about $24 billion in April 2026, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from The Block, a digital assets media and information firm. Sports has made up 80 percent of total trading volume on Kalshi and 39 percent on Polymarket since July 2024.
Sports-focused users were the most active, with a median of 69 trades over the six-week period, followed by cryptocurrency traders at 59 and politics traders at 13.
Despite that high engagement, outcomes were modest at best: 58 percent of accounts finished within $100 of breaking even. The typical Polymarket user placed 46 trades over the six-week period and spent a little more than $600, finishing with a net loss of less than $2.
The pattern places prediction market participation squarely in the category of low-stakes recreational spending rather than a meaningful income stream for the typical user.
A young male audience, but a broadening one
Five percent of Americans 18 and older say they currently use prediction markets to make trades on sporting events. Males aged 18 to 34 are the most likely group to do so, at 11 percent, more than twice the rate of the general population.
Twenty-six percent of young men report using at least one sports betting, daily fantasy sports, prediction market, or gambling platform in the last six months, compared to 14 percent of the general public. That gap underscores how concentrated leisure wagering still is among younger men, even as platforms push to broaden their reach.
The shift mirrors broader patterns in how Americans increasingly blend leisure and financial participation, a dynamic also visible in the growth of social-media-influenced decisions across age groups.
Leisure habit or financial risk?
Forty-one percent of prediction market users said their top reason for using the platform was to make money. Yet the behavioral data collected by Pew suggests most users are not treating it as a serious financial enterprise. The small sums gained or lost per period align more closely with entertainment spending than with investing.
Among those who have heard of prediction markets, most Americans, 91 percent, and young men, 88 percent, view purchasing event contracts as financially risky, on par with investing in cryptocurrency and placing a sports bet.
Only 21 percent of Americans say they are very or somewhat familiar with prediction markets, compared with 35 percent who say the same about online sports betting. That awareness gap suggests the category still has room to grow as a mainstream leisure activity.
Research into how digital platforms reshape leisure behavior continues to draw attention, including the ongoing competition between screen-based and analog pastimes.
Data on Polymarket users comes primarily from the Polymarket user activity API, which does not include the company’s newer U.S. platform; Kalshi does not make this kind of user data available. The analysis covers 11,989 accounts from May 7 through June 19, 2026. The findings do not capture activity on competing platforms or offline wagering, meaning the overall scale of prediction market participation as a leisure category is likely larger than the figures reported.
